Enhanced cooperation: European Public Prosecutor's Office (A8-0290/2017 - Barbara Matera)
Andrejs Mamikins (S&D). – Mr President, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) will fill serious international gaps. The prevention and prosecution of offences against the EU budget and the financial interests of the EU are currently within the exclusive competence of Member States. The EU Anti-fraud Office OLAF, Eurojust and Europol do not have a mandate to conduct criminal investigations, and sometimes their opinions are ignored by national authorities. We have worrying information that, in some Member States, national investigators are under pressure from local politicians, and they are not interested in the proper investigation of the use of money from European funds.
We have now taken a small but very important step. We have started to create a European system. We should not be confused by the fact that only 20 EU Member States will participate in the creation of the EPPO or by the very limited nature of its mandate. As we have often seen in EU history, big reforms all start with very careful first decisions.